R Illman
Biographic Data
| ID | 36793 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Illman |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Illman |
| SIGNATURE | ILLMAN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Åbo Akademi University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5258-7040 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Religion and Spirituality as Sites of Learning
Learning penetrates religion in many ways. Primary religious socialisation - sometimes referred to as religious nurture - is the process by which children are explicitly and purposefully taught to do things religiously or they learn implicitly by following what their families and other people around them do, speak and feel. In secondary religious socialisation one sets about learning something additional to or different from what was learned and …
Religion: Memory and Innovation
The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2023, on the theme of 'Religion: Memory and Innovation'. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku) and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together …
Vems islam?: De kontrastrika muslimerna
Recension av: Fazlhashemi, Mohammed. Vems islam? De kontrastrika muslimerna. Stockholm: Norstedt 2008, 318s.
Om mediernas makt att invandrargöra
Recension av: Ericsson, Urban 2007: Belägrade människor – belägrade rum. Om invandrargöranden och förorter. (Etnolore 30, Skrifter från Etnologiska avdelningen.) Uppsala universitet, Uppsala, 194 s.
Turn to Traditions – Calls for Change: Negotiations over Liturgy in the Synagogues of Finland
This article explores how Jews in Finland relate to the musical traditions of their synagogues and the changes that have occurred in the customs over time and as the result of various cultural and spiritual influences. Based on ethnographic data, it focuses on rituals, liturgy, and music as contexts for negotiating relationships between the institution and the individual, memory practices, and contemporary innovation – being and doing Jewish, to …
Funerals in the north of Europe: Similarities and differences
Editorial of Approaching Religion, Vol. 13 Issue 1
Finlandssvensk och judisk: En etnografisk analys av dubbla identifikationer och vardagsreligiositet
Artikeln undersöker hur frågor om finlandssvenskhet och judiskhet kopplas samman, kontrasteras och diskuteras i intervjuer med personer som – på skiftande vis – identifierar sig med bägge identitetsmarkörer. Artikeln söker svara på frågan hur det svenska i Finland uppfattas av intervjupersonerna: rymmer detta också det judiska och känner de sig hemma i den föreställda finlandssvenskheten? Med vardagsreligiositet (vernacular religion) som analytis…
Jude är något man gör”: Skiftande reflektioner om att vara jude i Sverige idag
Recension av Jude i Sverige: en antologi, red. Daniel Pedersen (Stockholm: Föreningen Judisk kultur i Sverige, 2021)
Bending, Breaking and Adhering to Rules of Contemporary Jewish Practice in Finland
This article draws on an ongoing research project that seeks to document ethnographically everyday Jewish life in Finland today. Based on the framework of vernacular religion, it approaches religion "as it is lived" (Primiano 1995) and analyses the many expressions and experiences of rules in day-to-day Jewish life as part of complex interactions between individuals, institutions, and religious motivations. Historical data, institutional structur…
Religion and cultural change
The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2021, with the theme 'Religion and Cultural Change'. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku), and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doc…
Mystik blir vetenskap
Den 29 mars 1956 i Dornach, Schweiz undertecknade Olly och Uno Donner ett donationsbrev som lade grunden för ett nytt forskningsinstitut i Åbo. De donerade sin egendom till Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi för att grunda Donnerska institutet för religionshistorisk och kulturhistorisk forskning som en knutpunkt för forskningen kring religion och kultur, en mötespunkt för forskare, studerande och samhället i stort samt en utsiktspunkt mot stora världen,…
Bilaga 4. Stipendiater vid Donnerska institutet 2013–2020
Bilaga 4. Stipendiater vid Donnerska institutet 2013–2020
Seekers of the spiritual art and higher wisdom
Editorial of Approaching Religion, Vol. 11 Issue 1, based on a two-day seminar arranged in Helsinki in August 2020 by the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation under the title 'Clear-sighted Art - Open Mind? Encounters between Art and Esotericism
Minnen från ett finskjudiskt musikerliv i tradition och förändring
Recension av Sirkka Klemettiläs Pianomies Hillel Tokazier [Pianomannen Hillel Tokazier] (Päivä Osakeyhtiö 2019)
Orthodox Christianity and gender through a religion-as-lived perspective
Book review of Kupari, Helena, and Elina Vuola (eds.), 2020. Orthodox Christianity and Gender. Dynamics of Tradition, Culture and Lived Practice.Routledge Studies in Religion (London & New York: Routledge). Open access publication: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203701188: 214 pp
Researching vernacular Judaism: Reflections on theory and method
This article presents the ethnographically driven multi-method research perspective of vernacular religion and analyses its potential to contribute to the theoretical advancement of Jewish studies. The ongoing discussion on religion and change within the study of religions in general and Jewish studies in particular is outlined and structured around three ‘turns’ identified in the research on vernacular religiosity. To exemplify these theoretic…
Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies
This review article describes and analyses the development of the journal Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies (NJ) since its founding in 1975. It discusses the editorial policies and practices of the journal as these have taken shape over the decades, focusing on the thematic and disciplinary points of emphasis that have been central to NJ. The article also discusses the challenges related to digitising the journal and rejuvenating it…
The Jewish Tradition – Does it Matter
Introduction to the three conference presentations from the seminar at the University of Oslo in March, 2018
Singing in Hebrew or Reading in English? An Ethnographic Analysis of Music and Change Among Progressive Jews in the UK
The ethnic and religious future of Europe
The current 28th volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis is based on a symposium arranged by the Donner Institute, the Migration Institute of Finland and the Åbo Akademi University in June 2017, under the title: ‘The Ethnic and Religious Future of Europe’. All the articles published in this volume were initially presented as papers at this conference and have, through a double-blind peer-review process, been selected for this volume
Transformations of identity and space in the Middle East and North Africa
The current issue of Approaching Religion includes articles based on conference papers presented at the Fifth Finnish Colloquium on the Middle East and North Africa Studies, which was organised by the Finnish Institute in the Middle East (FIME), the University of Eastern Finland, Faculty of Theology, and the University of Helsinki, including the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Trad-itions, in Joensuu, 29-31 May…
Retaining the Tradition – but with an Open Mind’ – Change and Choice in Jewish Musical Practices
This article focuses on religion and change in relation to music. Its starting point is the argument that music plays a central role as a driving force for religious change, as has recently been suggested by several researchers of religion. Music is seen to comprise elements that are central to contemporary religiosity in general: participation, embodiment, experience, emotions, and creativity. This article approaches the discussion from a Jewish…
Finding beauty, goodness and truth in an ugly world
Review of Kimberly Vrudny's Beauty’s Vineyard: A Theological Aesthetic of Anguish and Anticipation (Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2016)
Religious diversity
The subject matter of this special issue is anything but new: religious diversity has already been widely discussed in theology, philosophy, history and sociology. (Too) many times, however, diversity has been measured against the yardstick of the changing face of monotheistic models of religion (mainly Christianity). Asian religions have stood at the opposite end of a spectrum of analytical models in religious studies ever since Max Weber's clas…
Jewish studies in the Nordic countries today
The current 27th volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis is based on a symposium arranged by the Donner Institute in March 2015, under the title: ‘Jewish Studies in the Nordic Countries Today’. All the articles published in this volume were initially presented as papers at this conference and have, through a double-blind peer-review process, been selected for this volume
Jewish studies in the Nordic countries today
The current 27th volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis is based on a symposium arranged by the Donner Institute in March 2015, under the title: ‘Jewish Studies in the Nordic Countries Today’. All the articles published in this volume were initially presented as papers at this conference and have, through a double-blind peer-review process, been selected for this volume
Facebook as a Site for Inter-religious Encounters: A Case Study from Finland
The aim of this article is to analyse the social networking site Facebook as a possible platform for inter-religious dialogue. Building on a case study—an attack on a Buddhist temple in Turku, Finland, and the consequent interaction that took place online immediately following the attack—the article investigates the strengths and limitations of social networking sites such as Facebook for encountering and connecting with religious others. The eth…
Retaining the Tradition – but with an Open Mind’ – Change and Choice in Jewish Musical Practices
This article focuses on religion and change in relation to music. Its starting point is the argument that music plays a central role as a driving force for religious change, as has recently been suggested by several researchers of religion. Music is seen to comprise elements that are central to contemporary religiosity in general: participation, embodiment, experience, emotions, and creativity. This article approaches the discussion from a Jewish…
Creativity, Community, Change: Functions of and motives for singing niggunim
Jewish musical practices stemming from Kabbalah and Hasidic mystical traditions are currently the object of growing attention among a variety of different Jewish communities in Europe and North America, as well as in non-Jewish spiritual circles. This article focuses on contemporary practices of niggunim – the (mostly) wordless melodies with roots in Hasidic Jewish traditions, sung, chanted and sometimes danced in preparation for, or as a form of…
Love, responsibility, otherness: Finnish church leaders and interreligious dialogue
In this article, the author will focus on the subject matter addressed in this appeal, i.e. peace and dialogue. The aim is to analyse how these Christian leaders view the role of religions, and especially interreligious dialogue, in creating and promoting peace. The author will begin by presenting the Peace Appeal and the interviews which form the empirical material upon which the research is based. The author will then concentrate on five issues…
W ords of Worth: Talking Religiously about Peace and Dialogue
In this article, I address the question of what special contribution the engagement of religious communities and individuals can offer to the larger peace movement from the standpoint of comparative religion. I argue that, on the one hand, religions can offer a language in which to speak about peace in a creative way—for example, by using words as dialogue and otherness, forgiveness and reconciliation, love and responsibility. On the other hand, …
Momo and Ibrahim—‘Thus-and-Otherwise’: A Dialogical Approach to Religious Difference
Studies on religious difference usually take their point of departure in an intellectually biased view of interreligious encounters where difference is treated as a problem to be solved and the challenge of facing the religious other is an intellectual task of making him/her intelligible. The current article aims at providing an alternative to this logical approach to religious difference by outlining a dialogical one. The perspective is based on…
Embracing complexity: The post-secular pilgrimage of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
This article deals with the phenomenon of pilgrimage as a personal transformative process; an exploration of spiritual space rather than a journey undertaken to a physical place. The analysis focuses on the life story and authorship of the novelist and playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (b. 1960). Schmitt began his career as an academic philosopher specialised in enlightenment rationality. A mystical experience in the deserts of Sahara, however, op…
Plurality and Peace: Inter-Religious Dialogue in a Creative Perspective
Within the research on inter-religious relations, dialogue is by tradition treated primarily as an intellectual challenge for political and religious leaders. The aim of this article is to show that this challenge is ethical and practical rather than merely theoretical in nature and to offer analytical reflections on the foundations of dignity in difference. The article focuses on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, treating dialogue and difference …
Perceiving the Other: Case Studies and Theories of Respectful Action
Reflections
This final section presents a literary excerpt and three personal reflections on the theme of Aboagora, as well as on the experience of taking part in Aboagora. It opens with a story written by Ruth Behar, dealing with her personal experience of mastering the English language. Professor Behar read this story as an artistic comment within a workshop entitled 'Between Art and Research: Rethinking Professional Borderlands', which dealt with the expe…
Aboagora - Between Arts and Sciences
The editorial note presents the journal and the current issue. The purpose of this e-journal is to contribute to the plurality of voices in the academic discussion on religion. Approaching Religion aims at offering an accessible, open and explorative forum for scholarly debate on timely issues and concepts related to the study of religion and culture. In order to fulfil the goals of availability and visibility, we have created our journal as an o…
Artists in dialogue: Creative approaches to interreligious encounters
This article explores the forms and functions of contemporary interreligious dialogue by focusing on artists who are active in this field. They represent different art forms and different religious positions: with their roots in Judaism, Christianity and Islam they have opted for a variety of positions, ranging from traditional adherence to renunciation of a personal religious engagement, or a fascination for new forms of religiosity. The aim is …
Initiating dialogue
The editorial note presents the journal and the current issue. The purpose of this newly inaugurated e-journal is to contribute to the plurality of voices in the academic discussion on religion Approaching Religion aims at offering an accessible, open and explorative forum for scholarly debate on timely issues and concepts related to the study of religion and culture. In order to fulfil the goals of availability and visibility, we have created ou…
The new visibility of atheism in Europe
The current issue of Approaching Religion, which opens the second volume of this e-journal, consists of papers, reviews and reflections originating from a roundtable seminar held at the Donner Institute in January 2012. Under the topic ‘The New Visibility of Atheism in Europe’, some twenty scholars engaged in research on contemporary religiosity and atheism gathered for a three-day seminar debating topical questions and themes related to the acad…
Aboagora 2013: The Human Machine
The editorial introduces the articles of the issue, all pertaining to the arts and sciences event, Aboagora, which gathered artists, academics and a wide range of interested listeners together to discuss the relationship between technology and the human being in Turku/Åbo in August, 2013. Aboagora is arranged as a joint venture between Turku Music Festival and scholars from the University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University and the Donner Institute
Concord, Conflict and Co-Existence: Religion and society in the Middle East and North Africa
This is the editorial for the special issue 'Concord, Conflict and Co-existence: Religion and Society in the Middle East and North Africa
Religion and food
The current 26th volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis is based on a symposium arranged by the Donner Institute in June 2014, under the title: ‘Religion and Food’. All the articles published in this volume were initially presented as papers or keynote addresses at this conference and have, through a double-blind peer-review process, been selected for this volume
Facebook as a Site for Inter-religious Encounters: A Case Study from Finland
The aim of this article is to analyse the social networking site Facebook as a possible platform for inter-religious dialogue. Building on a case study—an attack on a Buddhist temple in Turku, Finland, and the consequent interaction that took place online immediately following the attack—the article investigates the strengths and limitations of social networking sites such as Facebook for encountering and connecting with religious others. The eth…
Systems thinking, spirituality and wisdom: Perspectives on Ken Wilber
This is the editorial for the special issue 'Systems Thinking, Spirituality and Wisdom: Perspectives on Ken Wilber
Pentecostalism around the Baltic Sea
This is the editorial for the special issue 'Pentecostalism around the Baltic Sea
Jewish studies in the Nordic countries today
The current 27th volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis is based on a symposium arranged by the Donner Institute in March 2015, under the title: ‘Jewish Studies in the Nordic Countries Today’. All the articles published in this volume were initially presented as papers at this conference and have, through a double-blind peer-review process, been selected for this volume
Response to Melissa Raphael
A response to Melissa Raphael’s article ‘The creation of beauty by its destruction: the idoloclastic aesthetic in modern and contemporary Jewish art’. Key themes discussed include the notion of human beings as created in the image of God, Levinas’s understanding of the face and its ethical demand as well as the contemporary issue of the commodification of the human face in digital media
Art approaching religion and science
Editorial for the special issue on the theme of art appraoching religion and science
Retaining the Tradition – but with an Open Mind’ – Change and Choice in Jewish Musical Practices
This article focuses on religion and change in relation to music. Its starting point is the argument that music plays a central role as a driving force for religious change, as has recently been suggested by several researchers of religion. Music is seen to comprise elements that are central to contemporary religiosity in general: participation, embodiment, experience, emotions, and creativity. This article approaches the discussion from a Jewish…
Finding beauty, goodness and truth in an ugly world
Review of Kimberly Vrudny's Beauty’s Vineyard: A Theological Aesthetic of Anguish and Anticipation (Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2016)
Religious diversity
The subject matter of this special issue is anything but new: religious diversity has already been widely discussed in theology, philosophy, history and sociology. (Too) many times, however, diversity has been measured against the yardstick of the changing face of monotheistic models of religion (mainly Christianity). Asian religions have stood at the opposite end of a spectrum of analytical models in religious studies ever since Max Weber's clas…
Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies
This review article describes and analyses the development of the journal Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies (NJ) since its founding in 1975. It discusses the editorial policies and practices of the journal as these have taken shape over the decades, focusing on the thematic and disciplinary points of emphasis that have been central to NJ. The article also discusses the challenges related to digitising the journal and rejuvenating it…
Sociology (34 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Political science (22 works) · Art (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · History (11 works) · Judaism (11 works) · Anthropology (10 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (10 works)